1. Field
Embodiments of the present invention relate to a robot, which communicates with a gesture.
2. Description of the Related Art
Due to recent develops in robotic engineering, robots increasingly are communicating with humans. Various techniques for nonverbal communication between robots and humans have been developed.
One example of such nonverbal communication is a gesture. A gesture refers to the motion of a body or a hand, which is used to provide added effect to a conversation. In this way, a robot expresses feelings and state of mind.
However, a robot generally includes links and joints, and thus, has limited ability to make gestures. That is, if the robot can achieve a curved shape, the robot easily makes the gesture. However, the curved shape is not easily achieved with the links and the joints, and thus it is difficult to make a gesture.
Further, when the robot includes plural links and joints to achieve a curved shape, it is difficult to control the motion, due to the increase in the number of the links and joints. Moreover, the curved shaped obtained with the plural links and joints does not have a natural appearance, and thus the expression of the feeling or state of mind of the robot does not look natural.